Quizzes & Puzzles0 min ago
Lack Of Quarantine Let In 1300 Infected People From Aboard
At the beginning of the pandemic at least 1,356 different corona origin infections came into the UK, mainly from Spain and France.
On each of those occasions somebody brought the infection into the UK from abroad and the virus began to spread as a result.
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The failure to ground flights or quarantine people on those flights that were allowed, meant that the virus spread rapidly.
Only now, 10 weeks and 41,000 UK deaths later, are we making an half-hearted attempt at quarantining.
So much for taking back control of our borders. There should be an i quiring about how this error occurred.
On each of those occasions somebody brought the infection into the UK from abroad and the virus began to spread as a result.
https:/
The failure to ground flights or quarantine people on those flights that were allowed, meant that the virus spread rapidly.
Only now, 10 weeks and 41,000 UK deaths later, are we making an half-hearted attempt at quarantining.
So much for taking back control of our borders. There should be an i quiring about how this error occurred.
Answers
Apart from a curfew proper trace and isolate setup is the only sure-fire way to stop an epidemic. This approach has been used very successfully elsewhere but the UK ran out of test kits and had to abandon it shortly after initiating it at the outset and was never able to resume it. Part of such strategy would be putting all returning residents into quarantine...
18:08 Wed 10th Jun 2020
// Yes, maybe should have been done then with hindsight, but I don't see why that means we shouldn't do it now.//
Except we aren't doing it now, at least not in any meaningful sense. The quarantine measures being adopted are an empty gesture as long as they aren't universal and strictly enforced. There's also the problem that community spread, once established, is going to dominate over "re-introduction" from international travel. I am not sure what the latest estimates on new cases per day are, but it's probably in the region of 5,000 or so, in which case newly-arriving foreign cases are going to be lost in the noise.
Except we aren't doing it now, at least not in any meaningful sense. The quarantine measures being adopted are an empty gesture as long as they aren't universal and strictly enforced. There's also the problem that community spread, once established, is going to dominate over "re-introduction" from international travel. I am not sure what the latest estimates on new cases per day are, but it's probably in the region of 5,000 or so, in which case newly-arriving foreign cases are going to be lost in the noise.
>The quarantine measures being adopted are an empty gesture as long as they aren't universal and strictly enforced.
Wouldn't that have been the case in Feb/March too though, jim- unless we put them all under house arrest in airport hotels and emergency portakabins?
I agree though that it's just a gesture- but it would have been in April/May too
Wouldn't that have been the case in Feb/March too though, jim- unless we put them all under house arrest in airport hotels and emergency portakabins?
I agree though that it's just a gesture- but it would have been in April/May too
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Okay 12th Feb you posted this. Certainly no demands for quarantine from you there Gromit.
Okay 12th Feb you posted this. Certainly no demands for quarantine from you there Gromit.
Yes, only a blanket quarantine/travel ban would have killed the spread. But it would also have been possible, in principle at least, to find policies that "bought time" in order for the system to be ready. The challenge would then have been to use that time wisely. At the end of Feburary/beginning of March, much was made about how the UK was "two or three weeks" behind Italy (and Spain), and it seems hard in retrospect to argue that we used that extra time well -- especially now that we have apparently passed both of them.
dannyk, Australia and New Zealand brought in quarantining and banned flights at about the same time as Britain imposed lockdown, about the 20th of March. Both countries - both island nations, like Britain - have done very well, their death tolls a tiny fraction of Britain's even when allowing for differences in population.
I don't know that anyone was calling for quarantine back in February (I wasn't, for one), but other countries had certainly read the runes a month later and took action; and after that, hindsight doesn't apply. We're nearly three months behind them. That's cost many many lives.
I don't know that anyone was calling for quarantine back in February (I wasn't, for one), but other countries had certainly read the runes a month later and took action; and after that, hindsight doesn't apply. We're nearly three months behind them. That's cost many many lives.
Yes Gromit's post summed up how many of those who now support lockdown were thinking at the time. And we know a fair number on here (not me) have thought all along the lockdown was unneccessary/overkill. So without the benefit of hindsight would there really have been public support for strictly quarantining children returning from school skiing trips and families returning from holiday. Who here was calling for it in February?
FF,
Thanks for reminding me of that link. It was a bizarre post, I don’t know what it meant (still don’t), I think I must have been drunk (10pm midweek). But early doors of the corona virus I was comparing it to the 17,000 annual flu deaths and was thinking corona would come no where near that.
This is a good thread, the day before lockdown was announced.
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Thanks for reminding me of that link. It was a bizarre post, I don’t know what it meant (still don’t), I think I must have been drunk (10pm midweek). But early doors of the corona virus I was comparing it to the 17,000 annual flu deaths and was thinking corona would come no where near that.
This is a good thread, the day before lockdown was announced.
https:/
Uk is an international hub very close to Europe.
ff, it is, but it's also surrounded by water, like NZ, so it doesn't have unlimited borders as other countries in Europe have. Broadly speaking, trains, planes and some boats are the only ways in. Those could all have been blocked.
As I said, it does cause economic problems (antipodean tourist industries have taken big hits) but leaders took the view that lives needed saving ahead of businesses.
dannyk, Australia has about a third of the UK population but a fortieth of the number of deaths. The population density is less of a factor than it seems, since somewhere round 70-80% of it is so sparsely inhabited it's unlikely to show up on virus maps at all. The nearest UK equivalent would be the Scottish Highlands. The rest of the country, round parts of the coast, is among the most urbanised areas on Earth.
ff, it is, but it's also surrounded by water, like NZ, so it doesn't have unlimited borders as other countries in Europe have. Broadly speaking, trains, planes and some boats are the only ways in. Those could all have been blocked.
As I said, it does cause economic problems (antipodean tourist industries have taken big hits) but leaders took the view that lives needed saving ahead of businesses.
dannyk, Australia has about a third of the UK population but a fortieth of the number of deaths. The population density is less of a factor than it seems, since somewhere round 70-80% of it is so sparsely inhabited it's unlikely to show up on virus maps at all. The nearest UK equivalent would be the Scottish Highlands. The rest of the country, round parts of the coast, is among the most urbanised areas on Earth.
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